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BAM!

Isi jumped, or rather, jostled himself as much as he could from where he hung in the ceiling. Any sound at this point would make him twitch. He found himself prone to jump now, expecting every sound or movement to produce that dreaded grin where he least expected it. From the time Eiry knocked his cellphone from his grip to the time that he heard the faint crawl of tires across the gravel outside, he was still haunted by his ward, who stared at him for minutes on end, unblinking, unmoving with that smile. That smile! then there were times that Isi had to blink and Eiry would disappear, leaving Isi with exhausting paranoia, waiting, anticipating when he would show up next. Sometimes, Eiry would crawl across the bottom of the floor, or scuttle across the walls, somehow making himself looked deformed and twisted. Isi tried to shout at him, then, scream and him and demand his release, but that only caused Eiry to recite eerie poetry and tales, laughing loud and screaming madly with joy.

Isi couldn't feel his fingers anymore. In fact, his arms and legs had lost all feeling after waves of tingling, and his head was awhirl with dizziness. He tried to move himself, shift or wiggle free, if only to force blood into his limbs.

So when the front door was kicked in, Isi released a few tears of relief and happiness. Eiry, on the other hand, gave a great twitch and twisted his head to the doorway, his parade suddenly halted in light of an intruder. Then the raevan slunk into the walls.

"Oh, thank god!" Isi shouted, his voice breaking with weariness, "Aphi? No, Alex? Alex is that you? I'm up here!" He didn't care where his raevan was at the moment, all he cared about was seeing Alex's face. He wiped his tears off of his forehead and sniffed, trying again to lift his voice, "I'm here!"

Isi was so happy to see Alex's face he could almost cry. He reached for her, a desperate move on his part, but it made him feel as if she were actually there and gave him momentary hope that she would be able to pull him, right then and there, and free him from Eiry's terrible trap.

He saw the crowbar in her grip, and even though it was a bit hard to think, he could immediately put two and two together. She was going to rip up the floor boards! Fortunately, Isi didn't really care that much about the floor boards at this point in time as long as he was pried out of the ceiling.

"Alright! I'm not going anywhere..." Isi answered. He watched as Alex disappeared around the stairwell with almost murderous Italian intention. Then, as an afterthought, Isi shouted, "Watch out for my raevan! Don't let him touch you!"

He looked around worriedly, trying to find any trace of mint or even the white of that unnatural smile. He tried to give a squirm as soon as he felt Alex near his legs on the other side of the ceiling and his legs tensed and gave a small kick.

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire."

Isi twitched and looked around, his gut twisting up at the faint sound of his wards singsong voice. "Eiry?" he called, his voice unsure, "Eiry if you DARE pull anymore of your ******** mischief, I'm going to---Heaven protect you when I get out of here, Eiry! Don't you DARE go near Alex!"

Isi winced as another floor board released the tight pressure on his sides. She was about halfway through the top layer of the stairs and there would be many layers for her to rip her way through until he could be pulled successfully from the ceiling. Isi found himself thinking slowly more and more about what she said, about the virus. If it augmented their powers and other things besides, then Isi knew why Eiry was doing this. It was his soul! He had the soul of a will-o-wisp, a ghostly thing without care for the health of the people it taunted. In fact, often their ploys and tricks in the marsh would lead one astray, purposefully guide them out into the mire and into endangerment. It didn't care about the end result, the will-o-wisp didn't think that far. The will-o-wisp only cared for immediate satisfying REACTIONS.

"But then this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?"

"EIRY! NO!" Isi shouted, trying to distract the wispy sigel somehow, but he knew, deep in his gut that it was already too late.

The voice grew louder around Alex as she worked, desperately trying to pry Isi lose. The voice came without direction, all around, behind, in front, to the side and above, every which way, until Alex saw the white white GRIN of the mad sigel before her after a blink, floating, his head still lopsided and smiling that terrible smile.

"The spirit of perverseness, I say, came to be my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute!"

And with a smile unmoving, Eiry faded away as quick as a blink, and then reappeared above her, pushing her forcefully into the wall so that only her forearms, upper chest, and head, and calves protruded. Then he remained there, watching her, unmoving, terribly still, frighteningly unmoving and unperturbed by any of his actions, waiting to sit in and watch the terror and rage play over her face.

Aphismet had panicked when he heard that voicemail during his break. He'd run up to the head chef and flailed an explanation that was only half-coherent, but the man knew that something must be terribly wrong to upset the sous-chef so. He'd given Aphismet the permission to leave, and Aphi had run out in his white chef's outfit, not bothering to change. A desperate search had finally yielded Rivener, who'd been having coffee with some random people Aphi didn't know. The Scorpion looked annoyed with his guardian's constant phone calls and sudden appearance, but Aphi's panicked expression placated Riv. He rather liked that look of panic.

Aph had all but forced Rivener into the car, yelling that something was wrong at home. While Rivener couldn't give less of a crap about Isi or Eiry at the moment, he followed anyway. He'd already poisoned the coffee of the people he'd been sitting with, so that fun was over for now. Soon they'd all fall sick and begin vomiting; Rivener had seen that a lot these past few days, it wasn't interesting anymore. Maybe whatever was going on at home would be better.

The chef's car screeched to a halt in the driveway, Aphi's eyes wide. Alex's truck?! What was she doing here!? Had Isi called her too? "Oh ******** oh ********, oh ********> Aphi ran out of the car, leaving his door open, and rushed into the house.

"ISIII! ALEEX! Where are you?!" Not knowing where to start looking, Aphismet gripped his cellphone and ran in a circle, glancing into the kitchen and dining room before rushing towards the stairs.

Alex's truck meant Zul was here! Rivener grinned. This WAS much better than those stupid coffee poisonings. Although really, Riv wasn't sure he was forgiving the demon's weird behavior from the other night. Zul had Cordelia after all. Scoffing, promising himself that he'd ******** make Zul BEG to be taken back, the Sigel floated into the house. As Zul was laying on the truck's bench, hidden from view, Rivener didn't spot him in passing at all. Trying to look unaffected and uninterested, Rivener followed Aphismet towards the stairs.

The blinking around the room-shtick was impressive. Alex knew, somewhere, that she should have been afraid of the way he was watching her, like one might wait for a cow to fatten for the slaughter. Even so, the scientist in her was amazed at what the virus had done to the jovial, good-natured Sigel; he was a complete maniac! She might have time to panic and worry about it later when he got bored with her, but for now, she was trying to catalog what she saw for a future report. The woman would not let herself believe that she might not be getting out of the situation.

Something did tick across her features as she heard Aphismet's voice; a brief flit of relief that she quickly smoothed out before anything else could be seen. Don't feed the animals, she thought to herself, watching Eiry's hungry expression. "Aphi!" she called out after she heard Isi's fading voice. Her voice was clear and strong, almost demanding in what she was imparting to her boyfriend. "Third floor! He's stuck in the ceiling, I almost had him out - don't worry about me, get Isi out and watch out for Eiry!" She couldn't let him gawk at her in shock or terror. They were in a race against time, with a being who moved quickly enough that time was almost relative.

She returned her attention to the Sigel and gave the minty being a smile. "Sorry sweetie. You can have all the worry in the world from me once it's just me stuck here. It's a nasty habit I have, caring for other people." There was just a slight undercurrent of disappointment in her voice. It was all she could do not to reprimand Eiry; she was certain it would fall on deaf ears, and quite frankly, she wasn't keen on wasting her breath. If Aphismet was caught...they'd be in a world of trouble.

"Aphi!" she called as an afterthought, "Call the Lab and leave a message, tell Kyou we're going to need him if I don't show up to work!" Kyou would have to be their last hope. With Eiry gone mad and Rivener not caring about anyone, it was going to be a very long night if they couldn't stop the Wisp.

At the first hint of footsteps making their way up the stairs, Eiry's face finally gave a twitch, a small muscle movement away from his ceaseless smile towards a brow furrow of irritation. Someone was coming up to steal away his show, he thought, he knew, and so, quietly, he faded away and slipped into the walls like an unwanted draft. He would have to change things, move things, but then again, this is precisely what Eiry wanted, precisely what his original plain entailed. There were two more actors to the play, two more additions to the story, two more hearts to SMILE at and twist, two more hearts to squeeze! Eiry found his grin breaking over his face once more from where he floated within the safety of the walls, an unhealthy smile that wouldn't hurt his face had he not been infected with the virus. Ho ho ho, Eiry thought, there are two more to feed on.

Not only Aphismet....But that THING...That red red THING that he, once upon a time, dared to call brother. That thing. Smile.





Distract them first. Then for the red one.

"I AM holding on!" the cripple shouted bleakly. Isi watched as Aphismet passed by the floor beneath him, and his chest felt a swell of gratitude. There were people around him who he felt safe with, that meant that they were going to get out of this now. He was sure. They were going to get out of this and Eiry was going to stop and...Isi blinked his eyes tightly shut. What was he thinking? Obviously, nothing coherent.

Isi struggled again, a weak flop and kick of his legs as the metal of the crowbar kissed again at his hips. He gave a groan, tried to twist himself, and gave up again. By the time he reopened his eyes and forced them to focus on the room around him, he picked out a familiar minty blob that came into detail a bit more slowly than everything else in the room.

He tried to shout, but his mouth was too dry. He gave a croak, that must've sounded like a protesting groan, and tried again, giving another frenzied kick of his legs that he couldn't feel anymore.

"Ngh!" the sound came as a groan again. It didn't form a word like he wanted it to. And by the time he was able to force out a terrified, "NO!" the wood and ceiling around him, splintered. It was not because of Aphismet's harrowing job with the crowbar, but something else entirely: the ghostly will of Eirdirsceol. The weight of his body, sent him sliding through the hole, and he could do nothing with his legs to brace his body from slipping through.

"But may God shielf and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sank into silence than I was answered by a voice within the tomb!"

"AUGH! APHI!"

Aphismet's work with the crowbar was taking up only enough of his attention to keep him focused. He could still hear Rivener speak to Alex so callously, could hear Eiry speaking from below. He could hear, but he didn't let any of it deterr him from his task. He had to get Isi free, that was the priority. He had to do it soon, before Eiry did something else to Isi. The boy's legs were flailing weakly, and Aphismet was just about to ask the younger man to stop when the floor gave a sickening crack.

Aphismet's body reacted before he could even think. He threw the crowbar aside and lunged with both hands, each one gripping one of the boy's ankles and catching Isikoro just as he slipped free of the hole in the ceiling. Aphi's arms were now both sticking through the gutted ceiling, Isi hanging halfway to the floor below. "Oh god, Isi, hold on. Are you far? Can you fall safely? It would be hard for me to drag you up but I will if it's too far to drop. Isi?" The chef's voice was as calm and composed as he could make it, brown eyes flashing with worry and carefully controlled determination.

Rivener blinked at Alex. Zul was too sick to move? ...And what did she mean, he'd never see Zul again if Eiry had his way?! Was Zul that sick because of Eiry's doing??

Well that was all the prompting the confrontational, aggressive Scorpion needed. He turned and roared, snapping his wings open. "EIIIRRRYYYYYYYY!!!" Growling and snarling in animalistic fury, the Sigel beat his wings down in a great gust of wind, propelling himself to the lower floor, where he'd heard the minty Sigel speak not long ago. Rivener would tear him apart this time!